Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Sporting KC Sign Jorge Claros and Martin Steuble

Sporting KC announced today the signings of midfielders Jorge Claros and Martin Steuble. The pair of midfielders, both internationals join the club for the second half of the MLS season.

Claros, a Honduran international has been a long time target of Sporting KC. He was pursued by the club during last summer's transfer window, but a deal did not get done to bring the now 28 year old to Kansas City. He has appeared 53 times for his country, the last three of which were at the 2014 World Cup. The Honduran had most recently been playing in his home country with CD Motagua. His time with the club though was split as he spent a year and a half on loan at Hibernian. He's probably most well known for the incident in 2011 when he was shot in the head and played three weeks later for his club.

Claros is a defensive minded midfielder and will help in both Lawrence Olum's and Paulo Nagamura's spots on the field. This gives KC some depth and cover there and also provides the ability for Olum to drop into the center back position if he needs to should KC send up selling Matt Besler in this transfer window. Claros will be available to make his debut this Saturday against the LA Galaxy.

Steuble is a Swiss-Filipino midfielder that was last with FC Wil 1900 in the Swiss second division. He's spent his entire career in the Swiss league, bouncing around a few clubs in the second and first division in his native country. He's started to get more games over the past few years with the likes of Wil and his club before that, Wohlen.

He'd been on trial with the club for a short while leading up to his signing. Steuble is also an international for his country, having represented the Philippines nine times in his career, scoring one goal in a friendly against Nepal. The dual citizen, along with Claros become the ninth and tenth player on the current KC roster to play for their national team.

The two signings give KC 30 players on their roster. Four of those players though are currently on injured reserve, leaving KC with 26 of their 30 spots full at this time (players on IR do not count against roster numbers but do count against the cap).